That Eternal Now

Eternity is almost impossible to define. Living in time tends to make forever seem like a longer extension of what I experience here. Yet as I read the Bible and think about the words that describe God’s experience, eternity must be more than that. My best guest is that in eternity, the things of time, including past, present and future, are all known all at the same time. That is, God who inhabits eternity is able to know the eons past, the right now, and into the future. He can see it all at once.

This is why the Bible says things like, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6-7).

In the mind of God, I am already “seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.” It is a done deal so these verses slip into “eternity” language. At the same time, for me that will be in “the coming ages” because I cannot see the future while I am locked in time, so these verses also use “time” language.

This is more than a mental exercise. From today’s reading in God is Enough, I understand the value of thinking with an eternal perspective. It says:

Faith must be a present faith. No faith that is exercised in the future tense amounts to anything. We may believe forever that our sins will be forgiven at some future time, and we will never find peace. We have to come to the now belief and say by a present appropriating faith, “My sins are now forgiven,” before our souls can be at rest. Similarly, no faith that looks for a future deliverance from the power of sin will ever lead a soul into the life we are describing. (Satan) delights in this future faith, for he knows it is powerless to accomplish any practical results. But he trembles and flees when the soul of the believer dares to claim a present deliverance and to reckon itself now to be free from his power.

If I thought that my deliverance from sin was going to be accomplished only after I die and step into eternity, life here would be unchanged by believing in Jesus Christ. I would live the same now as I did before I believed. What good is that?

But the Bible says, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3-4).

This is not talking about water baptism. The word baptism means “immersed” so it is about me being immersed into Christ, something that God did. He says that when Christ died, I died too. Like other eternal matters, this one is beyond my senses. I didn’t see it, realize it, and don’t remember it happening, but God says it did. Therefore I am to “know that (my) old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that (I) should no longer be (a slave) to sin” (verse 6) and “count (yourself) dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (verse 11).

Obviously this is a faith matter. God says it is true. Because of Jesus, my old life is dead to sin and I have a new life that is alive to God. I’m to “count” myself—other Bible versions say “reckon” myself—dead to sin and alive to God. This word is an accounting term. I cannot “see it” but I can consider that it is true, written in His account book.

Then there is the exciting part. When I start reckoning myself dead to sin, I start to see and experience it. When I consider myself dead to this temptation or that sinful response, the Holy Spirit gives me new attitudes and reactions that were never there before I knew Christ. Without any work on my part, the power is mine to overcome the power of sin, even those sins that once seemed that they would control me forever.

By doing this, it seems that my life here in time begins to blur with eternity. I can see my utter sinfulness, recognize that God has given me Jesus to overcome that sin and know victory over it all—all at the same time. That view of past, present and future is humbling, a battle, and yet at the same time also glorious.

I cannot fully imagine what it will be like to live with God in eternity. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” Some day I will fully understand these things. The part that I know now is just enough to keep my mind stayed on Him, and He gives me great anticipation about fully experiencing forever.